By María Paula Ángel*

Nestor-fiscal.jpg / Wikimedia Commons / Creative Commons

Revelations about Colombian Attorney General Nestor Humberto Martínez’s knowledge of serious cases of corruption prior to his election is raising questions about his ability to do his job with impartiality and independence – and about the efficacy of Colombia’s anti-corruption measures.  Martínez was a legal advisor for Grupo Aval – a partner with the Brazilian firm Odebrecht on a major infrastructure project – with whom a project auditor shared his deep concerns about corruption.  In 2015, Martínez confirmed to the auditor the range of the crimes, including “bribery, money-laundering, use of false documents, improper management, abuse of confidence, fraud, aggravated theft, misappropriation,” according to recordings of unchallenged authenticity.  Martínez failed to report this knowledge to the Supreme Court when he was being considered as a potential Attorney General.  Critics point out that this case makes clear Martínez’s multiple conflicts of interest during the campaign and now as fiscal general tasked with investigating the massive Odebrecht corruption case and the death of the auditor and his son, who were poisoned to death last November.

The Colombian Constitution requires public servants to declare, under oath, their assets and income and the private interests they may have due to their private past before assuming public office, when leaving office, or when the competent authority requests it.  This Income and Asset Disclosure System (IAD), formally implemented in 1995 and managed by the Administrative Department of the Public Function (DAFP), is supposed to provide a means for monitoring inconsistencies or irregularities in officials’ declared income and assets, and for detecting and avoiding potential conflicts of interest before they occur.  Information on the Attorney General’s previous clients, for example, should have identified potential and actual conflicts of interest.  However, the system has major flaws, and it is very difficult for the state or citizens to take advantage of the information:

• A combination of a badly designed legal framework, political resistance to implementation, resource and capacity constraints, and lack of public awareness of its usefulness hamper DAFP’s work. There are no penalties for failure to submit information.
• The DAFP only verifies the receipt of the submitted forms; the review of the completeness and accuracy of the information is only carried out, if at all, on a random basis. Similarly, when citizens have asked for a copy of a public servant’s submission, DAFP and the official in question have – unlawfully – denied access, arguing the latter’s right to privacy.  In the rare cases that access is approved, processing and analysis are highly unlikely because documents are often handwritten.

The case of Attorney General Martínez underscores the need for Colombia to move beyond rhetoric and get serious about disclosure and accountability.  Martínez has been through the revolving door in and out of government on at least eight occasions – common for public servants.  The World Bank Group and the United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime (UNODC) offer a range of “good practices,” elements of which are being implemented in the region – albeit also imperfectly.  Argentina has electronic data management procedures that have automated submissions and allow targeted verification of completeness and accuracy of the information more feasible for about 33,000 declarations annually.  Despite its myriad corruption scandals, Guatemala is among the countries that make disclosure compliance statistics publicly available, thus allowing citizens to hold accountable public servants that do not comply.  In Paraguay, the Criminal Appeals Court ordered the government to grant a journalist’s request for IAD submitted by public servants who occupied the highest public positions between 1998 and 2017.  Not one of these countries has adopted a comprehensive, effective approach to anti-corruption, but there is no reason that Colombia shouldn’t lead the way.

January 25, 2019

* María Paula Ángel is a researcher at the Centro de Estudios de Derecho, Justicia y Sociedad (Dejusticia), in Bogotá.